Someone asked about black impersonating whites. Eddie Murphy really is the gold standard.
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This is more an ethnic jewish impersonation than a classically white impersonation.
I prefer the old SNL skit where Eddie walks around as a white guy for a day and discovers that white people do all sorts of crazy ish when black folks aren't around (e.g., "When white people are alone, they give things to eachother"). This impersonation is very similar to Chappelle's more recent white newscaster and head of the white delegation at the race draft.
Gotta agree with laborlibert here. Eddie as Mr. White was on SNL hysterical. Especially at the bank where the loan officer just started handing him money.
Okay, my questions is a bit off topic, but it does relate to blacks impersonating whites (I think). I am absolutely clueless (obviously) regarding this issue. Back in the day (well, the early 1990's), there was a show called "In Living Color" with the Wayans Brothers, Dafid Allan Grier, Tommy Davidson, and Jim Carrey. One of the recurring sketches in that show was called, "Tom and Tom: the Brothers' Brothers." The sketches basically had two black guys (played by Keenon-Ivory and Damon Wayans) who spoke with these really odd, high-pitched voices. I just want to know, who exactly they were impersonating (if anyone)? Where they impersonating how white folks sound? Is that how people think white folks sound? I just never understood that. I just don't know anyone who talks or sounds like that. I am just curious.
(Also, please don't tell me how clueless I am being a white dude explaining "In Living Color" to black folks. The explanation was for those born after 1989.)
FW:
The Wayans Bros weren't impersonating white people they were "impersonating" Black guys who were trying to act or talk white i.e. "uncle tom's". hence the name.
Regarding their voices, I think for whatever reason Black males have a tendency to take a little bit bass out of their voices when they are in "professional mode." And that's not an "uncle Tom" thing, I've found it to occur quite often from all types of Black men from a variety of backgrounds. I don't know why exactly, it's not to sound white per se. Maybe it's just some kind of an attempt to sound less threatening.
For those who have never seen one of the greatest SNL skits of all time, link should be in my name. You're welcome.
"Silly negro!"
laborlibert is right. That was not white. That was an old Jewish guy (In yiddish he might be called an alter cocker.) It was a good impression, but he was not white.
You know, a friend of mine and I have this theory that all white impersonators owe a huge debt to Jerry Lewis--from the exaggerated white dance-sense to the stupid voice to the aversion to hipness.
I mean, Eddie was just following the first Nutty Professor, right?
Green,
Thanks.
FW
Thanks for the link, Rover. (But why do all SNL skits have such lame endings? "They might be black"? Geez.)
Not to follow your question off topic, Mike, but when Monty Python formed they thought that was the biggest problem of sketch comedy, and that it was insurmountable. As a result when you watch the old TV shows, you'll see them very self-consciously interrupting one sketch with another one, using the cartoons for an abrupt transition, even "breaking character" to announce that they're sick of the sketch and walk out -- all as a mechanism to avoid writing endings. (And fair enough, if you look at how they ended Holy Grail...)
So: not just SNL.
Coming to America is the greatest movie of all time. "Taste the soup!"
pshaw, black people have been impersonating white people since slavery. It took Richard Pryor for white people to find out about it.
The Brothers Brothers ostensibly were a parody of Tom and Dick Smothers, the Smothers Brothers, a folk music/comedy duo who started out in television presented as a clean-cut act, but had their variety show canceled by CBS in 1969 because of its liberal political content. Wikipedia claims that "The Smothers Brothers also lent their (uncredited) singing voices to 'Tom and Tom, the Brothers Brothers' in In Living Color (1990–1992)." However, the Wayans' bit was more of a generic black men acting like (exaggerated) white guys bit than a parody of the Smothers.
Eddie doing his white guy voice. (NSFW, at all).
I'd forgotten how hilarious Raw was.
Thanks for the clip. I've seen it before, but it's a good memory. I made my comment because I was noting a double standard. It's considered perfectly acceptable for white comedians to impersonate blacks, but the other way around is considerably less common.
Even in this clip, what we're seeing is the use of makeup magic, courtesy of Rick Baker. If you didn't know it was Eddie Murphy, you might not guess. The first time I saw Nutty Professor, I didn't guess the Richard Simmons clone was Murphy or any other black actor.
It's different when, say, Daryl Hammond does Jesse Jackson. There, he doesn't even bother to look black, and we're just expected to ignore the fact that he's white, just as we're expected to ignore Dan Aykroyd's mustache when playing Jimmy Carter.
Even better is Eddie Murphy doing his bit about ordering a Big Mac at a McDonald's in China and the Chinese employees making roundeyes at him.